“We cut down the trees and the land we reclaimed
We ploughed and we planted and we ploughed once again
And again and again and again and again
So now on a hot windy day, we watch our topsoil blown away.
So who’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me,
The desert is marching down to the sea
The day that it stretches from shore to far shore
We’ll go Waltzing Matilda no more.”
Slim Dusty, Matilda No More 2000.
The south-west of Western Australia has experienced declining rainfall since the mid 1970s (IOCI, 2002). Several decades of below average rainfall and a recent succession of dry years has focused attention on water resource availability and reliability in south-west Western Australia.
In the south-west of WA – once considered Australia’s most reliable wheat growing region – rainfall during winter has been declining since the late 1960s. Since that time, there has consistently been below average rainfall in the months from May to July. In recent years, this increase in aridity has also expanded spatially.
During the past 50 years, the shift in rainfall has been substantial, with some areas of southern and eastern Australia receiving 250 millimetres less rainfall than they did back then, while parts of the north-west are receiving 250 millimetres more. On the old scale, that's about eight inches of rain a year, a substantial amount in much of our marginal farmlands.
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